SUBSCRIBE NOW! Vol. 28 No. 2 — March/April 2004 Industry News Compiled by Suzanne Sabroski

Three Science Sites Eliminated
Elsevier plans to close its three end-user portals—BioMedNet, ChemWeb, and ElsevierEngineering. Although these have been very popular with scientists and scientific researchers over the 6 years of their existence, Elsevier doesn't feel the portals add sufficient value to its marketing effort to make the investment in them worthwhile. The portals combined free information, including news stories, reference works created specifically for these portals, research updates, job postings, and abstracts of scientific articles. From the abstracts, users could access the full text, for a fee, from suppliers such as Elsevier's own ScienceDirect or the British Library's Document Delivery Service. Elsevier unveiled its new corporate Web site on January 20, 2004, using the same FAST technology that powers Scirus to allow full-text searching. It also announced major deals with the U.K.'s NESLi2 consortium of academic and research libraries and with the California Digital Library to provide electronic journals to the University of California libraries. Its "Big Deals" on other U.S. campuses, however, face renewal pressure and, in some cases, outright non-renewals [www.elsevier.com].

Groxis Announces Grokker 2
Visualization of search results got a big boost when Groxis shipped its second version of Grokker, a visual search tool. The desktop search product groups search results in a dynamic contextual setting using a map metaphor. Grokker also provides plug-ins for specific sources. At release, plug-ins existed for the Web, Amazon, and computer hard drives. The Web search module works with AltaVista, MSN, WiseNut, FAST, Yahoo!, and Teoma. Planned are ones for Google and eBay [www.grokker.com].

Census Data from GeoLytics
The CensusCD Neighborhood Change Database (NCDB), mentioned in ONLINE's May/June 2003 "Industry News section," is a proprietary product of Geo-Lytics, Inc. and was developed in conjunction with the Urban Institute and Rockefeller Foundation. Although based on U.S. Census data, it is not a government product. The newest version of NCDB includes the 2000 Long Form variables and allows researchers to explore changes in U.S. demographics from 1970 to 2000. Projections for 2003 to 2008 are also available [www.geolytics.com].

Search Engines

LookSmart re-launched its large full-text article search capability, delivering access to 3.5 million articles from more than 700 publications. The service, FindArticles publication database, provided to LookSmart by Gale Group, is available via a dedicated Articles tab on LookSmart.com. With publications dating back to 1998, much of the content is from the deep Web and is often not available at the publications' own Web sites. LookSmart also has built a number of advanced search features into the articles tab. Users can browse a magazine title by issue, search within a publication, or exclude a publication from search results [415/348-7000; www.looksmart.com].

Online Services

Dialog announced a series of upgrades to Dialog NewsEdge, its industry-specific, personalized current-awareness and news alerting service for corporations. The upgrades include improved methods for printing, saving, and sharing multiple documents. A new "shared user" feature allows multiple users within an organization to access document sets without the potential for disrupting automated, ongoing search queries set up and managed by a single authorized user. An additional enhancement is the highlighting of search terms within retrieved documents, enabling users to judge more quickly the relevance of articles and reports. Dialog NewsEdge combines up-to-the-minute news, analysis, and research culled from thousands of global sources. Editors, who specialize in individual industry sectors, personally manage customized editorial relevance rankings [919/461-7354; www.dialog.com].

Northern Light Group announced the introduction of the Northern Light Business Research Library, a paid service for enterprise customers containing a collection of Web content specially selected to be of high value to business professionals as well as an extensive collection of 1,900 periodical titles. All of the premium content in the periodicals collection will be available in full page-image format showing all the pictures, tables, and charts in the original articles. The Northern Light Business Research Library will be free of all advertising—no pop-up or pop-under ads, no paid search results, and no offensive content [www.nlresearch.com].

ProQuest Information and Learning announced a distribution agreement for Oxford Analytica's OxResearch database. The new contract with the U.K.-based international consulting firm gives ProQuest exclusive worldwide distribution rights for the K-12, academic and U.S. military/government library markets. OxResearch is an archival database of articles published in the Oxford Analytica Daily Brief series, which dates back to 1984, covering both world and regional economic and political developments of major significance and analyzing the impact of these developments on the political, business and operating environments. ProQuest will offer OxResearch as a stand-alone online subscription service in the ABI/INFORM business database suite [800/521-0600; 734/761-4700].

Sci-Tech

STN Easy for Intranets, which enables information professionals to integrate online databases and full-text supply systems into their company or campus intranet, is now available. The system provides numerous sophisticated administration features, e.g., individual administration of access authorizations, access to selected databases made available to/blocked for certain users and user groups, integration of full-text information sources, and cost center allocation. Additionally, the latest version of STN Express went live in December. The new features in STN Express with Discover! Analysis Edition (version 7.0) will help information professionals see the "big picture" when they search and retrieve information from scientific and technical literature and patents. Along with the new 2-Dimensional Analyze Wizard, this new version also introduces tools for chemical structure analysis and assistance in query development with the CA Lexicon [800/753-4227; 614/447-3731; www.cas.org; +49 7247 808-555; www.stn-international.de;
www.fiz-karlsruhe.de].

Biomedical

PubMedCentral has made available the full text of the complete volumes of the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, now published as Journal of the Medical Library Association online. The archive begins with Vol.1, 1911. The full-text articles are available in PDF format at www.pubmedcentral.gov.

images.MD, the first-of-its-kind online encyclopedia that compiles continuously updated, annotated images from all aspects of medicine, is available for a free institutional trial. Over 48,000 medical images ranging from allergy to urology make this a useful tool for researchers and practitioners alike [www.biomedcentral.com].

Business & Finance

EDGAR Online announced the addition of a complete collection of conference call transcripts, company Webcasts, and an events calendar to its flagship EDGAR Online Pro service. The conference call content is provided in partnership with CallStreet LLC and OpenCompany.info. The company recently announced additions to its flagship EDGAR Online Pro service, including complex fundamental, ownership, initial public offering, and secondary offering datasets, and advanced search tools. EDGAR Online previously offered this content only to large enterprises as part of its EDGAR Online Explorer product via XML API data feeds for intranet integration [888/870-2316; 212/457-8200; www.edgar-online.com].

PR Newswire added several new features to eWatch, its leading Internet news and public discussion monitoring service for tracking news clips, rumors, reputation, and references. Enhanced reporting capabilities, improved clip management, and increased speed are all part of the latest upgrade. eWatch continually scans over 7,000 Web publications, hundreds of thousands of online publications, Web pages, bulletin boards and e-mail discussion groups in over 30 countries based upon customized search criteria. A new inbox enables users to sort links to articles by subject, client, date, search-term matches, or readership data [212/282-1929; +44 20-7490-8111; www.prnewswire.com].

Social Sciences & Humanities

EBSCO Publishing announced that H.W. Wilson's Art Index Retrospective: 1929-1984, a database of citation information covering more than 55 years of art journalism from nearly 600 publications, is now available via EBSCOhost. The database features a variety of document types, including feature articles, interviews, film reviews, book reviews, bibliographies, exhibition listings, conference reports, anthologies, editorials, reproductions, notices of competitions and awards, and letters to the editor published throughout the world [EBSCO: 205/980-6794; www.ebsco.com; Wilson: 800/367-6770; 718/588-8400; www.hwwilson.com].

Expert Information, publisher of Index to Theses, announced a significant enhancement to the coverage of its Web-based service, with expanded coverage of the online backfile of theses. It now dates back to 1716, making Index to Theses the only service to provide total bibliographic control of U.K. and Irish theses. With the addition of this substantial backfile, the total number of theses listed by Index to Theses is approaching 500,000 entries [www.theses.com].

Classical International, Inc. closed its consumer-oriented Classical Music Online service in January. The company says it will focus attention on services for libraries and institutions, including its Classical Music Library, which offers nearly 15,000 tracks of legally licensed music recordings, plus program notes, biographies, and images. The company suggests that individuals recommend the service to their libraries and issued a statement offering sincere apologies for any disappointment or inconvenience this will cause and appreciation for customer support [www.classical.com].

Peopleware

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web and director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), was made a Knight Commander, Order of the British Empire (KBE), by Queen Elizabeth II as part of the 2004 New Year's Honours list.

Bill Pardue resigned as CEO and president, LexisNexis Corporate & Federal Markets, to take a high-level position at Gartner, Inc. His replacement is Kurt Sanford, who moves to the U.S. job from his present position as CEO and president of LexisNexis Asia Pacific.

Ray F. Lowrey was named executive vice president and chief technology officer for Thomson Gale. Lowrey came to Thomson Gale from his current position as vice president of strategic product technology for Thomson Learning.

Kristina Bivins has added the title of chief operating officer to her SVP of business development title at MuseGlobal. Jeff Hammond was promoted to SVP of product management.

Thomas Aubrey was appointed to head the development of Datastream, Research and Economics, at Thomson Financial. Previously, Aubrey spent 4 years at FT Interactive Data.

George Plosker is now senior account executive, Database License Division, infoUSA, Inc., based in the San Francisco Bay area. He was formerly with Thomson Gale, joining Gale when it acquired Information Access Company.

Legal

Questel•Orbit announced the addition of French full-text patents to its expansive collection. Called FRFULL, the file covers French patent applications dating back to 1980 and is updated weekly. Univentio, a patent information service company known for high-quality OCR capabilities, produces FRFULL, which is enriched with corresponding bibliographic information from INPI by Questel•Orbit. Clipped images are also available. Customers can access either on a pay-as-you-go basis or in addition to an existing Fixed Fee Plan [703/873-4713; www.questelorbit.com].

LexisNexis announced that Zimmerman's Research Guide is available exclusively through the LexisNexis InfoPro Web site and through the lexisONE portal for solo and small-firm attorneys. Zimmerman's Research Guide is an extensive listing of legal, business, and other U.S. information sources. Developed by a researcher for researchers, the Guide contains more than 1,000 subject headings that are continually updated by librarian Andrew Zimmerman [937/865-8852; www.lexisnexis.com].

Portals & Intranets

FreePint launched its VIP service, which will consist of a monthly publication, VIP, and a supplemental semi-monthly titled VIP Eye. Targeted at information professionals and content managers in the international business information community, the interactive service will rely on reader feedback to guide its development. VIP will carry product reviews and previews, case studies, interviews with senior information industry executives, and a monitoring service for current research and future trends in the information industry. VIP Eye will transmit news and analyses by e-mail. The VivaVIP.com Web site will also offer two free services: the Wire, a press release database open for free postings by information-related companies and organizations, and the Lounge, a free discussion area for users posting views and content ideas. The Lounge will constitute the principal route for members to influence VIP content [www.vivavip.com].

xrefer announced that its xreferplus service is fully integrated with Ex Libris' SFX and MetaLib systems. Mutual customers of both companies will benefit, as these libraries will be able to seamlessly incorporate xreferplus into their online offerings. xreferplus features 1.3 million authoritative, full-text entries that cover a wide range of subjects, including art, medicine, science, literature, and more. The content is linked by a unique network of cross-references that cut across topics, titles, and publishers, as well as text, image, and sound files [617/426-5710; www.xrefer.com].

The British Library launched its new Secure Electronic Delivery Service. Harnessing the strength of The British Library's collections, the service gives customers fast access to over 100 million items, providing one-stop shopping for information. Most content, whether digital, print, or microform, can be delivered to a desktop within 2 hours, with digital material sent almost instantly [+44 (0)20 7412 7000; www.bl.uk].

The Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) announced Secure Desktop Delivery (SDD) as a new document delivery method. This makes it possible for CISTI to deliver copyright-cleared documents to its customers in electronic format with the implementation of a Web-based system that effectively prevents redistribution, copying, and storage of documents through the use of a customized Acrobat Reader plug-in [613/998-2362; www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca].

Alliances & Deals

eMeta Corporation announced that Ovid Technologies, the medical information solutions provider, has implemented eMeta's eRights Suite into the Ovid platform to support its PayPerView service. eRights enforces Ovid's PayPerView policies, provides a shopping cart, customer care, and customer self-care, allowing users to see their billing transactions and order history. The system manages transactions and refunds and provides report data to Ovid. Journals@Ovid offers a selection of more than 1,000 medical and scientific journals from more than 50 of the top publishers worldwide [eMeta: 800/804-0103; www.emeta.com; Ovid: 212/704-8245; www.ovid.com].

Ingenta announced the launch of The World Tourism Organization's (WTO's) e-library, offering a fully indexed and cross-searchable database of more than 250 full-text reports published by the WTO. The e-library is free to its 142 member states, while tiered subscriptions are available for affiliate members, libraries, and individual users. The e-library also includes the "Tourism Factbook," a search facility enabling access to the most up-to-date statistical information on a country-by-country or geographical basis [www.wtoelibrary.org].

Ingenta now joins the multitude of sources accessible via WilsonWeb's WilsonLink service. Customers can click from article citations on WilsonWeb to the full text on Ingenta, courtesy of the SFX-powered open-URL linking technology, at no additional charge. WilsonWeb database subscribers who have not enabled free subscriber access on Ingenta can also purchase individual articles from Ingenta [Ingenta: 401/331-2014; www.ingenta.com; Wilson: 800/367-6770; 718/588-8400; www.hwwilson.com].